20 Hours Left.
CNN is reporting that Bush has commuted the sentences of two former border patrol agents who shot an illegal immigrant who was smuggling drugs.
The prison sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Joe Compean will now end March 20. Ramos had received an 11-year prison sentence; Compean had received a 12-year sentence.
….
The official [who announced the commutations] noted that both Democratic and Republican members of Congress have supported a commutation, including President-elect Barack Obama’s incoming White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and Texas GOP Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn.
Your thoughts? Mine is that a commutation is much better in this case than a pardon, since at the very least they are still convicted of their crime. But my whole reaction to this is “meh.” I guess it is an indication of how the supposed wedge issue of immigration has faded over the last two years. The conservatives pushing immigration as a wedge issue to divide us wanted these two agents fully pardoned, for I suppose [shooting]* an illegal immigrant is no crime to them. So I suppose they are not fully satisfied today.
Will Bush make any further pardons or commutations? President Clinton did not release his full and final list until the morning of January 20.
* – the drug smuggler here was not killed. I was under a false impression when I first wrote this. My apologies.
it doesn’t make sense at all. If you don’t think they are guilty then pardon them. If they are guilty of fucking killing someone, lying about it, abusing their power and intimidating people….then let them go to freaking jail.
what a joke.
but if they had an ounce of coke on them…20 years
Sorry Don V, nobody was killed. The drug smuggler was shot in the ass (he survived) as he abandoned his van load of marijuana – but the prosecutor in the case convinced the jury that there was no proof that the van belonged to the smuggler, other than the testimony of the agents themselves. The judge refused to allow the smuggler’s prior record of drug smuggling, or the fact that he was also a confidential informant and a cousin of a senior Border Patrol agent.
Is that true, G Rex? I have seen reports referring to the smuggler being only shot and some saying he was killed. If he was only shot, then I would agree, the sentences were too harsh.
grex still thinks Iraq has WMD’s even though bush admitted they didn’t
so take his word for what it is worth
No, it looks like GRex is right. It pains me to say it, but he is. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/19/AR2009011901394.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR